A collection of FDR's fireside chats presents them exactly as they were originally broadcast to explore a world of economic disaster, social reform, and international danger and to stress the importance of Roosevelt's leadership in American political history.

Roosevelt's 31 radio fireside chats are gathered together, with a general introduction that discusses the importance of Roosevelt in American political history, the rise of the radio as a political tool, and the way the president--aided by speech writers and advisers--prepared and delivered the chats. Issues of the day are explored in two additional introductory essays. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Reproduction of the original: The Fireside Chats by Franklin D. Roosevelt

“I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States.” Thus began not only the first of Franklin Roosevelt’s celebrated radio addresses, collectively called Fireside Chats, but also the birth of the media era of the rhetorical presidency. Humorist Will Rogers later said that the president took “such a dry subject as banking and made everyone understand it, even the bankers.” Roosevelt also took a giant step toward restoring confidence in the nation’s banks and, eventually, in its economy. Amos Kiewe tells the story of the First Fireside Chat, the context in which it was constructed, the events leading to the radio address, and the impact it had on the American people and the nation’s economy. Roosevelt told America, “The success of our whole national program depends, of course, on the cooperation of the public—on its intelligent support and its use of a reliable system.” Kiewe succinctly demonstrates how the rhetoric of the soon-to-be-famous First Fireside Chat laid the groundwork for that support and the recovery of American capitalism.

Read Along or Enhanced eBook: Each Flash Points: Power On! eShort is a single chapter from the full Flash Points: Power On! title, packaged as a mini eBook. Flash Points: Power On! eShorts include The Telephone, The First Fireside Chat, Video Game Advancement, and The Future of Smartphones.

Selected letters originally published in The people and the president, c2002 by Beacon Press.

How was FDR's image constructed—by himself and others—as such a powerful icon in American memory? In polls of historians and political scientists, Franklin Delano Roosevelt consistently ranks among the top three American presidents. Roosevelt enjoyed an enormous political and cultural reach, one that stretched past his presidency and across the world. A grand narrative of Roosevelt's crucial role in the twentieth century persists: the notion that American ideology, embodied by FDR, overcame the Depression and won World War II, while fascism, communism, and imperialism—and their ignoble figureheads—fought one another to death in Europe. This grand narrative is flawed and problematic, legitimizing the United States's cultural, diplomatic, and military role in the world order, but it has meant that FDR continues to loom large in American culture. In FDR in American Memory, Sara Polak analyzes Roosevelt's construction as a cultural icon in American memory from two perspectives. First, she examines him as a historical leader, one who carefully and intentionally built his public image. Focusing on FDR's use of media and his negotiation of the world as a disabled person, she shows how he consistently aligned himself with modernity and future-proof narratives and modes of rhetoric. Second, Polak looks at portrayals and negotiations of the FDR icon in cultural memory from the vantage point of the early twenty-first century. Drawing on recent and well-known cultural artifacts—including novels, movies, documentaries, popular biographies, museums, and memorials—she demonstrates how FDR positioned himself as a rhetorically modern and powerful but ideologically almost empty container. That deliberate positioning, Polak writes, continues to allow almost any narrative to adopt him as a relevant historical example even now. As a study of presidential image-fashioning, FDR in American Memory will be of immediate relevance to present-day readers.